“What is that?” Rhapsody ceased digging for an instant.
“I believe it’s one of those—scales from Sharra’s deck,” Achmed said. “I took it from Talquist’s miserable hide before I—flung his arse from—his bloody—tower.”
Even in the gray light of coming dusk and the rolling cloud cover, a prismatic flicker of light skittered across its surface, making it shine with a violet cast.
Rhapsody went back to digging furiously.
“Do you have any idea how to use it?”
“Not even a guess. I tried to get instructions—from him as he—was falling into the canyon, but he—refused to speak up.”
“Well,” Rhapsody said, “if it’s violet, it would be attuned to the lore of the New Beginning.”
“What does that mean?”
“Practically, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Achmed grunted as another wave slapped him in the face. “You really are useless, you know—that? I—offer you a piece of the—most ancient elemental lore—and you don’t know how to—use it?”
The afterwave to the one that had slapped Achmed swept over Rhapsody and dragged her under for a moment. She emerged a moment later, still digging furiously.
“Violet, on the color spectrum, stands for the New Beginning.”
“That sounds promising. Do you know how to use it now?”
“I just told you, no.”
They stared at each other, soaked to the skin in the waves.
“Then I suppose we—will just have to keep digging, like anyone else would.”
Rhapsody gasped for air, then nodded, fighting panic.
“I can be of assistance.” The strange, sandy voice spoke next to Achmed’s ear.
Rhapsody moved aside slightly as the slippery sand gave out beneath her feet.
“Do you know how—to use a—violet scale, Rath?”
“No idea. But I can dig.”
Achmed nodded briskly and moved aside. “Did you travel down from the mast—on the wind?” he asked, his fingers bleeding through his leather gloves, now shredded from the effort.
“I did.”
“Is it going out to sea, or coming in off of it?”
The ancient Dhracian hunter blinked his large, scleraless eyes.
“It’s a mix, probably confused by the wave. Right now it is going out.”
The Bolg king nodded.
“Well, if you can anchor to a breeze and direct it down to—where we are digging—that might help somewhat—”
The Dhracian nodded and returned to his digging in the sea.
“I think—I feel the titan,” Rhapsody said nervously. “There is something harder than—the sand—” She stopped and held up an object retrieved from the seabed.
It was a green scale.
She handed the scale to Achmed and returned, with Rath, to digging furiously.
The Bolg king secured the scale within his garments and returned to the task.
“His heartbeat is fading.”
“He seems to have—fallen beneath the statue,” Rhapsody said, pulling a blue scale out as well and passing it, again, to Achmed. “Ugh. The Living Stone body seems to be dissolving.”
“Good. Rath, give me a—hand with him. I have located his arm. Rhapsody, take hold of his neck and—try to keep his head, or at least his nose, out of the water as much as you—can.”
The Lady Cymrian nodded and seized hold of the Sergeant’s neck.
Gingerly they stood, or at least attempted to plant their feet in the shifting sands. One mercy was that in the water Grunthor was far lighter, but nonetheless it was like attemping to lift an oxcart. Eventually they were able to raise him sufficiently to let the waves assist in bringing their friend’s body to shallower water, where their arms gave out once his nose was above all but the tallest waves.
“Perhaps now your lore would be useful,” Achmed said sourly, wringing his clothes free from the heaviest of the water.
Rhapsody had already begun to sing her Naming note.
Quickly and carefully she sang Grunthor’s Bengard name, an appellation full of clicking sounds and glottal stops. Her voice, harsh and ragged from the sea, struggled, as it always did, with the pronunciation, but within a few moments the giant Bolg began breathing more easily, his closed eyelids less bloodshot.
With each repetition of his name, Grunthor seemed to regain the flesh and color he had had a moment before. He winced in pain and coughed, expelling a great deal of the sea as he did.
Rhapsody watched him, stoic, as the water from the sea was banished.
By the Star—I will watch—I will wait—
Rhapsody spun around behind her.
The wind was spinning violently at the edge of the sea, forming a tunnel in the air.
“How—how can this be?” she whispered. “I hear the Kinsman call—again. In the years since the wind first—spoke to me I—have never heard it until this—afternoon, and it is here once again?”
Achmed looked up from the broken body of his oldest friend, who was breathing raggedly in the shallow surf.
“Do you recognize the voice?”
Rhapsody turned in the direction of the tunnel of air and listened intently.
“I think it might be Anborn,” she said.
“Go to him, then. You’ve done all you can here.”
“I can’t leave you—leave him—”
“If Anborn needs you, to the point where he—is calling you as a Kinsman, you must go,” Achmed said. He examined Grunthor’s face, put his head down on his chest and listened to the sound of his friend’s heartbeat, stronger now. “We can get him home—can we not, Rath?”
The Dhracian hunter inclined his head into the wind for a moment, then nodded.
“Go,” Achmed said again.
Rhapsody leaned over her friend, her protector and comforter. His face was pale, with blue, dark circles of pooling blood under his eyes.
But he was breathing.
She sang his name one last time, weaving into it every incantation, every melody of healing that she knew.
Then she struggled, her clothes heavy with saltwater, out of the surf and made her way to where the wind was waiting for her.
She turned back one last time and looked over her shoulder at the two Dhracians and her beloved Sergeant-Major, and raised her hand in salute.
Beneath his sodden veils, she thought she could see the Bolg king smile in return.
Then she stepped into the wind tunnel and was gone.
54
EASTERN COAST OF TYRIAN
The Lord Cymrian stood, breathing shallowly to bring the pain of the injuries he had sustained under control, looking around him in the bloody light of midday.
The southern forest of Tyrian was littered with bodies, mostly of Sorbolds but also a heavy number of Lirin casualties as well. Soldiers and commanders of the Alliance and the Lirin kingdom passed quickly between the treepaths, hauling away the corpses and sorting through the armaments, an air of quiet jubilation about them.
Rial, the viceroy of Tyrian and Rhapsody’s most trusted advisor, was giving soft-spoken direction to a contingent of young soldiers, who were listening thoughtfully to his commands; upon the completion of his instructions they turned, leaving in all the cardinal directions as if shot from the numbers of a clock. Rial observed them depart, then made his way over to Ashe.
“You be all right, m’lord?” he asked as he approached.
Ashe waved his expression of concern away, bending over from the waist. “Yes, I’m fine. Any word from the eastern lines of the Lirin army?”
“Aye. The fire assault was attempted against the forest outside the fortifications, and quelled, just as it was here. It was as if the trees of the greenwood refused to burn.”
Ashe nodded again. “If only her children could have refused to bleed.” He sighed heavily and looked around him. “Is there any word from the field commanders of the Alliance?”
Rial’s weathered face grew solemn.
“There is little, m’lord, but what has been reported is dire. Anborn’s First Wave has been clashing with the southern regiments of Sorbold along the Threshold of Death. The holy city of Sepulvarta has been freed, but to the south, a mass attack is brewing in the Teeth. The Alliance in the southern part of the Middle Continent is gravely outnumbered by the Sorbold forces. And those forces are gathering.”
“How much damage was done by the wave? How far did it impact?”
“The geological configuration of the harbor of Tallono helped a great deal in offsetting that, m’lord. The harbor is oblong, and deep; the wave hit it broadside, which swallowed everything but the tallest light tower, including all of the enemy ships and the temporary fortifications they had installed, but everything that had surrounded Tallono was never made to be inhabited, at least by Lirin citizens. Anything that had been there was a construct of the Sorbold navy, and has been eradicated.”
“Good. And the forest?”
“The bastions and barricades that were installed after the Sorbolds took the port have been washed away, along with the beachheads, and any that were established closer to Tyrian. The wave did encroach on the forest edge, and while the tree damage is extensive, our breastworks and the heavier defenses are only minimally impacted.”
Ashe clenched his teeth in preparation for the answer to his next question.
“And my wife? Has there been any word of Rhapsody?”
The viceroy exhaled deeply.
“She is said to have been heading south from Bethany, where she and the forces of the Alliance repelled the Sorbold attack from the north, and apparently Daystar Clarion and her whip were put to good use in Sepulvarta, but there was no word of her other than that, m’lord. I have tried to keep track of her whereabouts, but communication has been spotty, especially of late.”
Ashe blinked. “Her whip?”
A slight smiled crossed Rial’s face.
“Apparently she was made the loan of a whip formed from the tongue of an ancient dragon, a lorekeeper like herself, by a wyrm that makes its lair in Faedryth’s lands, when she left there to join the fray, m’lord. She showed it to me when she was here before joining up with Anborn. She apparently found it useful in taking iacxsis from the sky, having practiced plentifully in her travels on crows, making them explode, at least before she was injured. That activity seemed to provide her with immense pleasure.”
Ashe’s tired face took on the hint of a smile as well. “And how was she physically? How was she injured?”
“She had taken a bolt to the shoulder, at the hinge of her upper arm and chest, in the first battle of the Threshold,” Rial said, watching the Lord Cymrian wince, “but she was healing well and had the attention of Yltha, the best healer in Realmalir. She seemed in good spirits and health on her way to meet up with the Invoker and your uncle, m’lord, in the waning days of spring and summer’s approach when I saw her last.”
“And her—state of mind? Did she seem well, and focused?”
Rial’s face grew solemn. “Focused, yes, m’lord. She was intensely pragmatic, and seemed to be in little to no distress of body or mind.”
“But not well?”
“She seemed well, m’lord.”
Ashe gritted his teeth, trying to remain calm. “What are you not telling me, Rial?”
The tinge of amusement left the viceroy’s eyes.
“If I had not come to know her as well as I have these past five years, I would have said she was extremely well, m’lord.”
“So what does your informed understanding tell you otherwise?”
Rial examined the ground.
“She was not herself when she was here, in my estimation. She was fine, but there was something missing. I asked her upon her arrival why she had been in the Deep Mountains, something she had confided under strictest secrecy to me, and she didn’t seem to know. I do not believe she was telling me that I had no business with the information—it was as if she was unable to remember why she had gone there.”
Ashe’s stomach turned and his throat tightened, but he merely nodded. “Is that all?”
“Perhaps it was her injury, or the seriousness of the coming conflict, but she seemed to have lost, well, much of her spirit, her essence. She was stouthearted and resolved, as ever, but that—that warmth, that energy that be unique to her, I felt it was diminished, gone, even. No one else has commented on it, however, so perhaps I am just overanalyzing the situation.”
“Perhaps. Thank you for the report. Now, unless you have further need of my presence, I am off. The sailors of Manosse and her naval forces are ready to assist in any of the retrenching, rebuilding, guard duties, whatever you have need of; put them to good use. They came quite a distance to aid the continent; do not allow them to let the tidal wave and the dragon to have done all the work.”
Rial smiled. “Yes, m’lord. So you be heading east?”
“I am,” said Ashe, gathering his belongings and checking his gear.
“I would suggest you begin in Sepulvarta,” said Rial, signaling to one of the nearby Lirin soldiers. “Be so kind as to obtain the finest available mount for the Lord Cymrian,” he ordered.
“It need not be fine, just swift and stalwart,” said Ashe. “Thank you, again, for the report, and for your steadfastness in holding Tyrian safe.”
“Of course. Travel safely, m’lord. And give my fond best wishes to your wife, when you should come upon her.”
Ashe nodded, but the cheer of civility had left his eyes.
He glanced back up at Rial.
Only to see that it was missing from those of the viceroy as well.
55
SOUTH OF SEPULVARTA IN THE SORBOLD MOUNTAINS, AT THE RADASHAJN PASS, VORNESSTA
Rhapsody waited until the screaming wind had settled before leaning out of the swirling vortex, then stepped cautiously forward.
She squinted, disoriented, in the blazingly bright light beyond the wind’s door; a moment before, in the surf of the Skeleton Coast, the heavy mist and the racing clouds had made the day seem as if it was almost dusk.
Upon looking around, she was slapped almost immediately by a sandy breeze, a dry wind heavy with the odor of battle, of pitch and bitumen, and of blood.
Daystar Clarion’s blade was roaring with wind-whipped flame, spilling erratic flashes of light around her. Rhapsody stopped and drew a breath; the wild dance of the fire was owing to how violently her arm was shaking. She steadied herself and glanced about her.
She was standing on the rim of a vast canyon in the mountains, most likely in the southern Teeth, she guessed by the position of the sun, which was descending the welkin of the sky, glowing ominously over her right shoulder.
All around her was the detritus of battle, broken wagons and bodies, pools of blood and urine staining the sandy ground, fingers of smoke hanging heavily in the air, and an endless number of arrow shafts and shattered crossbow bolts. The litter of lives and matériel went on for as far as she could see.
And rising across the canyon before her was a mountain peak towering menacingly toward the sky, jutting partway over the canyon so that the ground beneath it was in shadow, its face marred by what looked like an enormous door, small by scale to the mountain face.
The door seemed to be vibrating, a distant thudding sound reverberating from it.
Behind her, almost near enough to touch, stood Solarrs, her recent fellow military commander and Anborn’s prized scout, bruised of face with his armor bloodied, one of his vambraces slashed open on his forearm.
He was staring past her, down into the canyon.
Anborn’s bastard sword at his feet.
“Solarrs,” Rhapsody whispered. “Where is he? Where is—”
The saliva in her mouth dried like a stream in a rocky desert riverbed.
Standing at the base of the jutting mountain cliff in the canyon was the small figure of the Lord Marshal, his arms at his sides, his hand clenched into fists, or so it seemed to her.
He was
gazing, his back to her, at the coming onslaught of soldiers of Sorbold, too many to count, just beginning to ride down from over the far rim of the canyon.
Weaponless, shielded only by a stack of sandy rocks, which were deflecting the arrows and bolts being fired at him from above.
Behind her she could hear the noise of distress rising from the soldiers of the Alliance, outnumbered easily ten to one by the advancing Sorbolds. Behind the enemy cavalry, foot soldiers were beginning to swarm over the far rim, blackening the sand-colored rockwalls with their numbers.
“No,” she whispered. “He’s—he’s trapped—Solarrs—we have to get him out of there—”
Solarrs’s non-answer was a guttural sound of anguish.
“Anborn!” she shouted, her voice ringing in Namer’s tones and therefore unable to mask her terror. “Anborn—get out of there!”
Her words echoed across the rock valley, even over the cacophony of the approaching army.
The Lord Marshal spun around and shielded his eyes with his hand, searching the rim of the canyon until he sighted her. Even as far away from him as she was, the Lady Cymrian could see his smile upon beholding her on the cliff rim.
“Rhapsody!” he shouted. “Open the door!”
She froze, staring at the coming avalanche of soldiers.
“The door!” Anborn screamed, gesturing behind him at the mountain cliff that hung over the valley behind where he stood. “Open the bloody door!”
Time seemed to slow as Rhapsody followed the line of his arm back to the throbbing doors in the mountainside. All sound was now washed out in the thudding of her own heartbeat, the overwhelming clamor of death approaching on horseback and foot.
The words reverberated against her skull, the command of the Lord Marshal.
Open the door!
Then, though she could reckon no reason for the order, she felt her body answer her leader’s call without questioning it. Understanding took root in her nonresponsive brain; she turned her attention to the burgeoning door and fixed her mind on it.
She closed her eyes, so as not to see the tidal wave of galloping horses and running enemy soldiers bearing down upon her sworn knight, turned in the direction of the door, and pointed Daystar Clarion at it from across the canyon.
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